Welcome to episode 341 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris.
Facebook Live. I love it. It’s fantastic. Last week we talked about how I’ve been using going live to really improve my social media community, and the engagement, etc, etc. Really, we talked about two reasons you should never go live on social media, or at least the two reasons people give me and why they’re just utter BS. It was only a little click baity you guys. It was only a little click baity.
Today I want to talk about three tips I have been using to improve my Facebook Lives. As I mentioned last week, I, you and I, we go live together on Facebook once per week, minimum. Generally speaking it’s on Thursdays, I’ve gone live more than once a week a couple of times this year, but the Thursday show is pretty much the standard issue Facebook Live time for you and I to connect.
I want to talk about a few things I’ve done to, again, improve that, not only from a you guys getting a better show, but from a me seeing real results standpoint. Transparency, guys. Seeing results is important. Number one. I started using OBS. OBS allows me to stream from my desktop on my webcam, in fact, to you guys in the Facebook world. It also allows me to do things like smoothly transition from me onscreen to my desktop to, if I’m going to have guests or anything, I can stream more than one person, and flip back between the two of us, and do side by side stuff, and I’m able to do that really seamlessly. I have not done Facebook Lives with a guest yet, although it’s something that I might do at some point. I just haven’t yet.
Also, it allows me to do things like schedule an upcoming stream on Facebook, so I can actually let you guys know in advance, which is particularly helpful considering I don’t go live at the same time. I go live around the same time, some time between nine and ten-thirty, usually on Thursdays when there’s not a challenge or something happening. Also, when I have the challenges, I’m able to schedule when we’re going to be live to do some video stuff, and then share a link to that live and the email before it happens, and say this is where we’re going to connect. Just like I would a webinar link. That’s been incredibly helpful and I’m able to do that through OBS.
One of the first things I would suggest if you’re looking at up-leveling your Facebook Lives, you want to move up from just your iPhone or your smartphone or whatever, look at using OBS. That’s a really great way to up-level. That’s not to say that going live on your iPhone or Samsung or whatever smartphone device you have isn’t cool. If that’s where you’re at to start, do it. Again, pointing to last weeks episode, if you haven’t listened to it yet, go listen to it. It doesn’t have to be fancy, it just has to get done. If you want to up-level it, and you want to be able to do some cool stuff, check out OBS. That was a big game changer in not only up-leveling the value I was able to give, and up-leveling the environments and the kind of content I’m able to share, but also for me, it has a much more pro feel, and I’m much more likely to do it when I have it scheduled, and I’ve already told you guys I’m going to be live Thursday at ten am. That’s an advantage for me.
Again, guys, transparency. When I tell you I’m going to do something, I’m a whole lot more likely to do it than when I tell myself I’m going to do something. It’s just the way it is. Number two thing I have done to up-level my Facebook Lives, planning. I have an editorial calendar just like I do for the podcast. I outline what I want to cover in these Facebook Lives just like I do the episode of this show. Yeah, there’s a plan here, guys. I know it’s not always super clear, but there is a plan. That has been really helpful. It also keeps me from rattling on for 25 minutes about nothing. Not only on Facebook Lives, but again, on this show. I can keep my rattling to five, ten, fifteen minutes, which is much more consumable than getting somebody to hit play and stay live with me for 45 minutes, because I’m great, but woo! that’s a long time. So plan.
Use an editorial calendar. Get an idea of the structure you want to talk about. Know what the goal is for your show, and that’s going to lead us into point three, but I always know exactly what I want to share, exactly why I want to share it, and what it feeds into, meaning is this about getting you to an episode of the show? Is this about getting you into my Backstage? Is it about getting you onto my email list? Is it about getting you into a webinar? Is it about getting you over to a joint venture? Is it about getting you to an affiliate link? What is the purpose? That comes from, again, having a plan. In January and February, you may have noticed that a lot of my content pointed to a singular topic, because that was really a focused marketing effort for the first two months of this year to get you guys to content I knew would be really valuable at this time of year.
I knew a lot of you in January were looking at starting podcasts or up-leveling your podcast, and so that’s what we talked about in January. We talked about content. We talked about podcasting. In February, I knew a lot of you are going into launch times. Maybe you finally built a program or even maybe you have that podcast, and you want to know how to really rock Facebook ads. That’s what we talked about in February. This month we’ve talked a lot about going live because I’m getting a lot of questions about it.
All of my content is centered around a single topic. Again, the podcast and the Facebook Live stuff can really feed off of itself, because we have a larger marketing plan, because we have a larger topic that we have, again, strategized and planned for, and now we’re executing on. Look at your marketing plan. Look at your social media plan. Get your content plans, and figure out where Facebook Lives fit in there, and then plan each episode, because again, that has been a huge, huge game changer, and not just getting results from a business standpoint for me, but getting results in a value standpoint for you guys, for the people who watch. Again, take the time, plan, plan, plan, it’s all good. All right?
Number three, the final thing, and again, this really builds off of number two. Do not forget to make the ask. You’re giving value. You are sharing your message. You get off and you’re like, “Oh, how come nobody joined my email list, or bought my program, or whatever it is that I hoped would happen?” Did you tell them about it? Did you send them to a link, is there a link in the copy, the written copy above the video or next to the video or depending on what screen you’re on, did you make some sort of call to action? If you didn’t, that’s why they’re not going anywhere. That’s why they’re not taking any next steps because you haven’t really told them what next steps to take. Again, when you have a plan, this gets a whole lot easier to do because you know where you want to feed.
Going back to what I was talking about earlier, a lot of the content in January was about podcasting. February was about Facebook ads. So it was kind of a no-brainer to say, “Hey guys, we’ve got this inside of Backstage. Or we’ve got this happening on the podcast. Or we’ve got this webinar coming up, or this free challenge coming up”, and point them to someplace where I knew they were going to get the next step in value, the next step in, again, taking them, and you hear me saying this, I swear to Bejesus, almost every episode, from problem to solution. The next step to get them a little further down that path toward solution was whatever the call to action was in that Facebook Live. Do not forget to make the ask. This is something that I was really, really crap at when I did Facebook Lives and even Periscopes last year, consistently saying, “Hey guys, here’s what’s next.”
I’d even in the past been not so great about it in the podcast. You may have noticed this year, we’ve really got a close that tells you what the next step is because that’s what Hit the Mic Backstage is, it’s the next step to this podcast. It is the next step from problem to solution, so guess what? I’m getting better about telling you guys, “Hey, this is what’s in there, and this is why you need to pay attention to it.” You’ve got to be doing the same thing in these Facebook Lives, or Periscopes, or Instagram Lives, or YouTube Lives, or wherever it is you’re creating this content, and really in every piece of content you’re creating. Blog posts, videos, podcasts, I don’t care what they are, you’ve got to be making that ask. You’ve got to be making that call to action, because again, it’s our job to get them further down step by step, sometimes baby step by baby step, from problem to solution. You have to tell them what that next step is. You are their Google maps. All right? All right.
Your next step inside of Hit the Mic Backstage, we’ve got a brand new training on using lives to grow your community, so check that out. We’ve also got the revamped Facebook guide in there, which does have some videos on Facebook Live, in addition to Facebook ads, and pages, and groups, and events, and strategy, and all that stuff. That is your logical next step if you love this episode, and you want to dive deeper. HittheMicBackstage.com. Of course, I will see you Backstage. See you.
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